Air Guitar Alberta makes its debut June 1st at Bo’s Bar & Grill in Red Deer.

Red Deer is the first event of the Alberta Air Guitar season followed by Medicine Hat and Stony Plain. Last year, Red Deer crowned their first official champ – Kaje ‘Sista Fista’ Annihilatrix. She will be back to defend her title and take on all those who come to challenge. It is bound to be another amazing night of wild performances and costumes.

However, this year will be different for one very notable reason, we are short one of our own. You will surely recall the outlandishly over the top Joel “Hand Solo” Zak. Last year, just before Christmas, we learned that he had taken his own life, leaving us all incredibly heart broken. Joel had been part of the Alberta Air Guitar scene since its inception, and as a tribute to him and his friendship, this year’s Red Deer Air Guitar Championship will be held in his honour. Joel was our 3rd place hero. We call him that because he placed 3rd in Alberta both years he competed and then again at Nationals when he entered the Dark Horse competition. On June 1st, the proceeds of the event will be donated to Suicide Information and Education. Please help us celebrate Joel and make a meaningful donation to this important service that helps those who suffer from mental health crisis.

Joel first entered Air Guitar as a favour to Alberta organizer Tyler ‘Cat Friday’ Gardner, to help him out when he was just getting his first event off the ground. Always the giving friend, Joel never even hesitated. Like most ‘real’ guitar players, Joel thought Air Guitar was kind of ridiculous, but he knew how much Tyler loved it and being the best kind of friend, he was instantly on board.

Air Guitar Red Deer is stoked to have BANGER BINGO, the most heavily sought after glam metal bingo troupe this side of the world opening the night. And closing the night is none-other then local rock super stars: TIGERMILK.

Judging The night will be Returning Veteran Air Guitar and local Radio DJ Judge Peter Michaels. This will be the 3rd time Peter has Judged the Competition.

Next to him will be Dale Zak. Dale is Hand Solo’s father and an incredibly talented musician himself

The busiest person of the night might be Dylan Cave. Along with being a judge he is also manning the sound booth, and plays Drums Tiger Milk who will be closing the night! Dylan is also owner and Pittmaster at the Red Boar Smokery.

Finally, we have Chris Pearce. Chris is a traveling craft vendor known as Ragnar the Trader that creates and sells various Viking items, his specialty is the drinking horn.

The 5th and final judges seat will be live auctioned off on the spot. The winner will sit on the panel and help decide who moves on to Nationals.

Don’t hesitate – 1-min of Air Guitar might win you a trip to Toronto to compete at the Air Guitar Canada National Championships on July 15th for your chance to become the Canadian Champion and travel to Oulu, Finland for the Air Guitar World Championships.

REGISTER TO COMPETE or show up the night of and try your hand at the Brave Souls Round. All competitors are provided 1-2 complimentary Collective Arts Beers.

BUY YOUR TICKETS in advance and make your contribution to the charity. Do it for Joel.

Blake ‘The Canadian Tuxedo’ Johnston from Toronto is Your 2016 Canadian Air Guitar Champion!

July 16th, 2016 – Toronto, Ontario. The MOD club was set a fire last Saturday with twenty-one Air Guitarist heroes all seeking to be the Nations’ best. But alas, there could be only one… and that one was none other than Blake Johnston – The Canadian Tuxedo. He used every inch of his fanny pack carrying capacity and filled the stage with Airness unmatched in our 3 years of competition. He scored 4 perfect 6.0’s the final round and cemented his place as the king of Air Guitar in Canada. He unseated our 2015 champ – Jay ‘THRUST’ McNeely – who was no slouch – breathing fire, and stripping down to minimize air resistance.

Here is the summary of the night. Thanks to amazing photographs by Henry Vanderspek from from CultureSnap.

Huge thanks to all who participated, our venue (Mod Club), our volunteers, our audience, and our sponsors (Steam Whistle, Panago Pizza,Banger Bingo, Blitz Printing, Eatertainment, Second City, Hogtown Pub and Oysters, and The Bond Place Hotel). All proceeds go to Right To Play – Looks like we should be close to $3000 donated for the season. Official number to be announced following some final accounting.

We were blessed with a all-star panel of judges with a variety of backgrounds to deliver the scores to find us our 2016 Champ. Our judges were: Entertainment reporter Rudy Blair, Adam Ricard of The Edge 102.1, Sara Elizabeth lead singer of Bloody Diamonds, Actor Suresh John of CBC’s Mr. D, and Kelly Dickinson and Ainslie Dowle of Right To Play Canada.

Our host was Kat Curtis of Naked News... she rocked some fresh duds with styles inspired by The British Invasion – like Bowie and Geri Halliwell.

Let’s get to the Re-Cap:

DARK HORSE COMPETITION:

The night started with the final shot at entry into the championships – commonly known as the Dark Horse competition, after some last minute cancellations we had SIX performers try for the last 2 spots in the Championships. They were (in order of performance): Tyler ‘Cat Fiday’ Gardener (Red Deer), Carlos ‘Hanzel the Manzel’ Mengual (Toronto), Matt ‘Champ Forrester’ Hallsworth (Toronto), Joel ‘Hand Solo’ Zak (Red Deer), James ‘AIRick Clapton’ Dalzell (Midland), and Darryl ‘DAZ’ Jones (Toronto).

First up was Cat Friday. Nimble and pouncing like a fierce feline, he came away with a combined score of 16.4 to earn him a spot in the championships.

Hanzel the Manzel prayed to the rocks gods and they listened giving him the top scores in the Dark Horse round with a combined tally of 16.9. He moved on to the championships. Nice crotch shot…

Champ Forrester came next and tried to make lemonade from Led Zeppelin’s Lemon Song. His performance was sweet, but the judges left him feeling sour with a combined score of 15.3. He would not move on.

Next up was Joel ‘Hand Solo’ Zak from Red Deer, Alberta. This man is the epitome of good vibes and good times. He rocked the stage with glee and disrobed revealing some pretty dandy boxer trunks. We can’t wait to see him rip it up again next year in Alberta – His combined score: 16.0 – good for third place in the Dark Horse. A number that Hand Solo is getting a little tired of seeing as he’s come in 3rd for every competition he has ever entered.

AIRick Clapton came next. Fresh from the Brexit debacle, AIRick had been self-medicating himself through the sorrow of the Leave vote and was happy to gain some clarity if only for one minute with a sterling performance of Layla. He lost his head at one point and launched his toupee into the sky, only to have the sky reply “We’ll take that”. His golden locks remained up in the rafters for the remainder of the show. Bare headed… Airick received the tally of 15.8 – good for 4th in the Dark Horse.

The final Dark Horse competitor was none other than DAZ. With his signature pointing moves, and leather jacket that screams ’80’s rocker’ fashion, Daz did what he does best and gave the crowd a rollicking rendition of Twisted Sister’s ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’. The judges took it. Then gave him a tally of 15.1. Punks.

HELLBROS!

While we got organized for the Championship round – We were thrilled to welcome the HELLBros! from Ottawa to blow the roof off the MOD Club. They were possibly the best part of the night. Peter, Christian, Matt and Josh put on a killer show and Culture Snap got these sick shots of them doing the real thing…

CHAMPIONSHIPS

We had 16 Air Guitarists in the running for the title this year from 4 different provinces and 7 different cities. Here are the heroes who gave us the biggest and best Air Guitar competition ever held on Canadian soil in the history of Air Guitar Canada.

We started much like we started the Dark Horse competition with Tyler ‘Cat Friday’ Gardner – drawing first spot in both rounds of competition, our Red Deer dynamo was not deterred and left it all out on the dancefloor. Forever to be called the Canadian Care Bear of Air Guitar, Cat Friday got us off to a wicked start. His score: 16.7. Not enough to move on, but good enough for 9th in Canada.

Going 2nd was the heart and soul of Air Guitar Canada. Bob ‘Mr. Bob’ Wagner. While he’s shy about his status as our most cherished and most veteran of performers, Bob is quick to point out that his age and his IQ are basically the same: 72. But that his IQ is 72.8, which gives him just enough smarts to get up and Air Guitar for all of us. That .8 is his MOJO. He rocked out to his favorite – Elvis, doing ‘Johnny Be Good’. Judges gave him a 16.6. Not good enough to move on this year.

NEWS: We are going to run a campaign in the coming weeks to ensure that BOB makes it to Finland for the World Championships to compete in the Dark Horse for his chance at gracing the world stage. 50% of the finds will go to Right To Play. We need your help to get him there… so stay tuned on how to pitch in to make it happen. Here’s a sweet shot of our boy, Bob:

Going 3rd was Mark ‘Whisky Pockets’ Slater who growled his way through a thrashed up version of Beastie Boys’ ‘Sabotage’. He scored: 16.9 landing him a spot in the final round.

4th was Hanzel the Manzel fresh from the Dark Horse competition. He wowed the judges again with his highly reflective and flashy performance and scored just enough to land him a spot in the finals with score of: 16.8.

5th spot in the order went to Kit ‘Kid Vicious’ Kolbegger who again proved that time, experience, serenity and super-stardom comes to those who shred. Check out the vibe on this shot… easily the most self-explanatory photo for why Air Guitar can mean something more than just the 1-minute of wild. They scored: 16.7 – tied for 9th and one spot out of the finals… but nothing short of inspiring.

Up 6th was our first ever Saskatoon Champ – Natalie ‘Sweet Dee’ Scott. She started with a reading of Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary… straight into Van Halen’s ‘Hot for Teacher’. She crawled and bent her way around the stage delivering one of the sauciest performances yet of the competition. The Judges responded to her sweetness with the highest scores of the evening thus far with: 17.1. She would move on.

Up 7th was Toronto native and Brave Soul success-story Adam ‘HOLYROD’ Holroyd. He choose by far the most technically and ‘guitar’ centric track called ‘Bad Horsie’ by Steve Vai. It was nothing short of awesome. He hit the notes with perfection and whipped his curly locks around like he was astride a bucking bronco at the Calgary stampede. Perhaps it was the time of the night, perhaps it was the stuffed horse animal that was protruding from his belt, but the judges didn’t see the sheer genius of his performance and he scored just shy of placing in the finals: 16.6. No bad scores. Just nothing high enough to propel him into the next round. We hope HOLYROD comes back to redeem himself next year.

This is when the night starts to get a little punchy. Taking the stage in pure theatre was the Vice-Champion from Saskatoon – Brennan ‘Major Party’ Risling marched to the front in all bombast. He saluted the crowd in his best teacher/major-general voice and explained the ‘nature’ of Major Party… for like 5 minutes too long. The audience ate it up. The Judges wanted Air Guitar. and while he delivered the payload to the tune of ‘God Save The Queen’ by Sex Pistols, the judges court-marshaled him for his lengthy break in decorum. His scores: 15.5. The Audience quickly informed the judges of their displeasure with a volley of boos. My friends… that is Air Guitar for ya.

Going 9th was our first-ever North Simcoe Air Guitar Champion – Bryan ‘Dr. Rock-Star Genius’ Piitz. He channeled his inner Lemmy from Motorhead and brought out a classic Air Guitar track by Extreme – ‘Play With Me’. Judges enjoyed, but didn’t quite give the scores to push him into the finals with a tally of: 16.7 – Good enough for tied for 9th in Canada.

Going 10th was our eventual champion Blake ‘The Canadian Tuxedo’ Johnston who choose to go near the middle of the pack to take advantage of the peaks and valleys of scoring in a large field of competitors. His strategy and his performance paid off as he took the highest scores of the night thus far with a tally of 17.5. This put him in 2nd place for the Audience Choice round. Here are some choice shots of his performance of System of Down’s ‘Chop Suey’:

Going 11th was our first-ever Red Deer Alberta champion Kaje ‘Sista Fista’ Annihilatrix who looked so amazing and transcended cool with her performance of rocked-up version of ‘All Along the Watchtower’. She had a tough act to follow but made the home team proud – the judges gave her a respectable: 16.4.

12th up was our 2-time Quebec Air Guitar Champion Helene ‘HEY!len’ Laurin. She came out in army fatigues and created a 1-min message about war and world peace in her Air Guitar routine. She was technically pristine and aside from a slow end to a strong start (all part of the creation) her performance showed us why she’s the Montreal champ. The judges’ scores were good but they were not strong enough to earn a spot in the finals: 16.5. 5.5 across the board.

Going 13th – Zandy ‘The Space Mime Continuum’ Pothier – one of three finalists from Ottawa. Zandy didn’t speak a word and wowed the crowd and judges alike with his full and complete performance of Protest The Hero. His score: 17.1

14th – Our first-ever champion and competitor from Medicine Hat, Alberta, Darin ‘Ebony Love’ Mckay. One of our favorite performers of the night and a true show-man. He rocked out to ‘I Believe in a Thing Called Love’ by The Darkness. He betrayed the dark side with a light up heart shaped belt that was by far the raddest and effective accessory of the night. He got some huge scores from our judges and found himself in the finals: 17.3. Good enough for 4th place moving into the finals.

15th – two more performances and both from Ottawa. This was our Ottawa Champ – Gen ‘The Geek Girl’ Leblanc. She was one of our many female champions this year that totally owned her spot at the front of the pack. She got huge scores from the judges with her Baby Metal performance. SCORE: 17.4 – this put her in 3rd place moving into the final round.

Last to perform and not one for being shy about adding spice to the stage was our 2015 Champ Jason ‘THRUST’ McNeely. He shoved every inch of himself into the tightest and shortest man-shorts we’ve ever seen and then breathed fire to Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Foxy Lady’. His theatrics and sheer rock-awesomeness earned him the highest scores of the Championship round with tallies of 5.9, 5.9 & 5.9 for a total of : 17.7 and first place moving into the compulsory round.

AUDIENCE CHOICE ROUND – Compulsory Round:

After all the dust had settled – we had 8 performers that would move on to the final compulsory round of performance. Arctic Monkeys’ ‘I Bet You Look Good on the Dance Floor’ won the Audience Choice vote and helped raise an additional $247 dollars for Right To Play through people boosting their ballots. In order of performance: Hanzel The Manzel, Whisky Pockets, Sweet Dee, Space Mime Continuum, Ebony Love, The Geek Girl, The Canadian Tuxedo and THRUST would battle it out for final standings and who would represent the country in Finland for the 21st annual Air Guitar World Championships.

Hanzel the Manzel pulled out all the tricks and delivered a rocketing performance moving his 8th place finish into a tie for 4th place after showering the audience in confetti and earning 5.9, 5.9 and 5.8 for a total combined score of 34.4.

Whiskey Pockets who voted heavily for the Arctic Monkeys had a blast and gave us a boozey final performance and ended the night in a tie for 7th place in Canada.

The Space Mime continued to push the boundaries and ventured into the audience with the first-ever mimed crowd surf. No mimes were harmed. He ended the night tied for 7th place.

Sweet Dee – Showing that Saskatoon can mos def play… ended the night with a respectable 6th place in Canada. We can’t wait to see what comes out of Saskatchewan in 2017.

Ebony Love, who was easily one of the best acts all night showered the crowd with roses and t-shirts. He won the hearts of the audience and came away tied for 4th place. We expect to see him back in 2017, unless Medicine Hat can find someone to unseat this love-bug of airness.

The Geek-Girl suffered from technical mishaps, but still delivered and landed herself in a solid 3rd place – showing that Ottawa is where it is at for Air Guitar. Next year could be the year of Gen. We know how close she was this year.

Then there was Blake’ The Canadian Tuxedo’ Johnston. His compulsory round performance showed the audience and judges what champions are made of. The furious energy, the intense eye contact, the hunger for the win and his ultimate surrender to the music elevated the performance into the stratosphere and earned him a set of perfect 6.0s.

It was now up to THRUST to defend his title and bring out some scores to hold his initial lead. He smashed a guitar, a familiar move from his first championship run, and then dropped an elbow on the wreckage. He tore open his shirt and even slipped off his kilt to reveal a very skimpy set of briefs that at times appeared to disappear depending on the camera angle. Jay delivered a performance to be remembered, but could not overcome the huge scores that The Canadian Tuxedo garnered. He left the stage knowing that it was time for a new champion. But we know we haven’t seen the last of THRUST.

The Canadian Tuxedo won the title, the love of the crowd and the respect of his fellow competitors… now he’s going to prepare himself to bring home the World Championship title in August. Check in to airguitarcanada.org for all the updates and news about Blake and his aspirations for world domination… as far as Air Guitar goes.

Thanks to all the judges and competitors for making the 3rd Air Guitar Canada Championships one of the best ever held on Canadian soil.

RED DEER TO THE RESCUE – First-Ever Championships Delivers the Goods

Event Re-Cap By: Tyler Gardner

Photos & Video by: Stephanie Kartzmark

June 18th, 2016 – Have you ever been somewhere and you could sense that something amazing was about to happen? Maybe it was the energy, the vibe, the tension, but you just knew you were in the right place for that moment that would undoubtedly go down in history. That is how I felt as I strolled into Fratters Speakeasy that night in Red Deer, Alberta.

Fratters, already a place rich with its history of music and performance was filling up with a new injection of electricity, accumulating in the air. As is always the case with such phenomena, it would inevitably find a way to discharge and unleash its full power all at once, and it did… all over the stage. Fratters is easily one of the classiest joints in town and by far the classiest place an Air Guitar Competition has ever been hosted at, or at least it was before we rolled in. This is the kind of place where a weirdo can be weird and a person can be themselves without being afraid of what others think (perfect for air guitar right?), and for one high flying, sock rocking night it was home… because as we all know, home is where you hang your Air Guitar.

It turns out that Red Deer was not to be the exception to the unstoppable wave of female Air Guitarists that have been sweeping Canada – proving without any doubt that Air Guitar is not just for the boys. Kaje Annihilatrix AKA: Sista’ Fista’ shredded through the night like a twista and made history as Red Deer’s first-ever ‘official’ Air Guitar Champion. When she hit the stage you immediately knew things were going to get crazy. While there were challengers and the scores were tight, once the dust had settled she remained standing tall… the Red Deer Champion.

Drawing first assignment was LT. Windhammer. Combining the names of two veteran US Air Guitarists LT. Facemelter and Windhammer. LT Windhammer defined what it means to be a Brave Soul; Having never even heard of competitive Air Guitar before this night he pulled out a pretty decent “Kickstart My Heart”.

5.1 – 5.0 – 5.3 – 5.1 – 5.2

Next up Maritime Sweetness showed us how sweet he really is, easily winning the award for best head banging of the night. He was head banging to “Shallow Grave” by Annihilator so hard he almost ended up in the drum kit!

5.8 – 5.2 – 5.6 – 5.5 – 5.5

Our only returning competitor from last year Hand Solo hit the stage next dressed in an Adam West style Batman suit… which makes sense. Walking out onto some vacant tables the Dark Night melted faces with his over the top performance with “Enter the Hall” by Revocation. He also impressed judges with the first Power Slide of the night!

5.8 – 5.7 – 5.5 – 5.9 – 5.8

Goldwin Massacre was next living up to his name as he laid waste to the stage showing exactly how its done! At one point he rode his Air Guitar like a skate board in tribute to the fact that the venue used to be an indoor skate park! He shredded to DRI’s “I Don’t Need Society” harder then it’s ever been shredded.. which is saying something if you know DRI. Rock N Roll is alive and well…. Gene!

5.3 – 5.5 – 5.5 – 5.9 – 5.7

Keeping things old school was The Black Heart! Who, dressed in all black rocked out barefoot to Joan Jett’s classic anthem “I Love Rock N Roll” earning herself the night’s first 6.0

5.9 – 6.0 – 5.6 – 5.1 – 5.3

Then out of nowhere last minute entry Zorba hit the stage looking like a being from a far away Galaxy of Rock and Metal. What followed was an Air Guitar clinic as he bounded through a medley of tracks including Journey – “Separate Ways”,

Daft Punk’s “Robot Rock”.

5.8 – 6.0 – 5.9 – 5.8 – 5.9

Sista’ Fista’ was next to try her shot at the invisible axe. As a Brave Soul she was going into this having never heard the edit of the song she chose, just picked from a list and killed it!! Thats what Air Guitar is all about! She also had some of the best Rock faces of the night! Her effort earned her the highest individual score of the night with nearly a perfect score!

5.9 – 5.8 – 6.0 – 6.0 – 6.0

Closing out the night was Jordy Bryce who rocked out to arguably one of the best Air Guitar Songs out there, “Iron Man” by Black Sabbath. And Jordy did not disappoint!

5.0 – 5.4 – 5.5 – 5.8 – 5.5

During half time organizer, national medalist, all around good guy Tyler “Cat Friday” Gardner (also the writer of this recap) gave the competitors a taste of what Nationals will be like. An official welcoming to the Air Guitar Canada family; theres nothing like a little family rivalry.

In the Compulsory round competitors had to Air Guitar to a mystery song unbeknownst to them. The audience voted through secret ballots and overwhelmingly chose a Heavy Metal Cover of “Gangnam Style”. After hearing the song once the top five from the first round, one by one performed the song. They went in reverse order based off of their previous scores.

Goldwin Massacre

5.6 – 5.6 – 5.5 – 5.8 – 5.6

The Black Heart

5.3 – 5.8 – 5.8 – 5.7 – 5.4

Hand Solo

5.5 – 5.8 – 5.8 – 5.7 – 5.3

Zorba

5.8 – 5.8 – 5.7 – 5.8 – 6.0

Sista’ Fista’

5.8 – 6.0 – 5.9 – 5.8 – 5.8

In the end after a hard fought night of battling Air Guitars only one can stand champion, that champion is Kaje Annihilatrix, or as she will be known hence fourth… Sista’ Fista’.

After wrapping things up with the traditional mass playing of “Keep on Rocking in the Free World” by Neil Young, Diesel May closed out the night. I couldn’t possibly think of a better way to conclude a night of Rock then with more Rock. No one does it better, or Rocks harder than Diesel May.

Congratulations to all of the competitors for making history at the first ever Red Deer Air Guitar Championships. Huge thank you to Fratters Speakeasy for being the coolest bar with the best staff in town. A thanks as well to our sponsors at Steam Whistle, 106.7 The Drive, Pango pizza, and Banger Bingo!!